We haunt every medium we make.

October 31, 2007

More Halloween Gothic game fare: Project Pravus is a point-and-click browser Gothic mystery, wherein you explore a foreboding house. The sound is excellent, between ambient tracks, unsettling sound effects, and fine voice acting. Visuals are ominous, gloomy, at times too dark, sometimes gory. Puzzles are basic. Game length is fairly short. Several aspects are familiar, such as the image plus sound shock effect. Moreover, the plot structure is, by now, a familiar one for Gothic browser games. But I don't want to give away story details. Play and enjoy.

Purgatorium is a very short, very well done Gothic casual game. Music, art, and substantial text tags build a disturbing, awful mood, not without gore. It plays in a browser.The title, or some knowledge of twentieth-century Gothic fiction, should give players hints as to the outcome.

Interesting game play note: although several actions, sound effects, and text boxes suggest an inventory of useful objects, there is no such thing. Don't look for it - simply click on the targets, and the game takes care of it. This can be frustrating, but is ultimately elegant.

Stats for major alternate reality games (ARGs) have been webbed up by Christy Dena. This is a very valuable item for researchers, ARG designers and players, as well as for those of us who explain ARGs to new folks.

A reporter's life has become a horror story after writing about a horror story. Kurt Eichenwald first published about Justin Berry in 2005, and continued to explore cyberpedophilia with the New York Times in 2006. Eichenwald combined journalism with personal intervention, exposing a criminal world in order to save some boys, which was apparently a tricky balance to achieve. Berry has since transformed his life into some commercial success and is attending college.

But Eichenwald, according to New York Magazine, lost his New York Times gig and suffers badly from physical and mental health problems. He's fighting multiple lawsuits and journalistic critics, while fearing for his career and life from the vengeance of online pedophiles.

Eichenwald has bunkered himself in his Dallas home....He’s teary, volatile, largely unable to work. He left the Times, then walked away from a large contract at Portfolio. His career is in tatters. For this, he blames a campaign by the convicts he’s exposed, other child molesters he doesn’t even know, random anonymous bloggers, and journalists, specifically the advocacy journalist Debbie Nathan, who has written several long pieces questioning his reporting methods and whom he calls “the high priestess of pedophilia.” He believes they are acting in concert to destroy him, professionally and emotionally.

Binghamton University’s Brian, who haunts the resident of his former room by writing the words “!!Em Pleh” ("Help me” backwards) on her computer screen. Eventually, Brian explains to the student who lives in his room that he wants her to tell his parents he died accidentally and did not commit suicide. Brian is a kind, caring ghost who doesn’t want to scare anyone; he just wants to tell the truth about his accidental death.

New evidence for the defense has appeared in the long-fought case of the West Memphis 3. The defense team offered evidence that the 1994 crime scene contained no DNA belonging to any of the accused (one of whom, Echols, remains on death row). Additionally.

the mutilation was actually the work of animals and at least one person other than the defendants may have been present at the crime scene.

This case is a notorious one, where signs of the Gothic culture counted as evidence towards murder convictions. The Wikipedia entry is a good start, as is the fascinating 1996 film Paradise Lost.

This Cats vs Dogs sketch has been popular, and in part because of the Gothic comedy in its second part. It begins with a dog's diary, a series of cheerful barks celebrating each part of the day.

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

etc. Then the cat offers his/her journal, and things get Gothy:

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects.

They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.